What is The Last Movie You Watched?

[Jericho]

Excellent film, Dead Man's Cards.

http://uk.imdb.com/title/tt0455933/

Dino, you might enjoy this one, chance to brush up on yer slang.

[Prospero]

Stavro wrote: "No thanks -when form becomes content and content becomes form you have cinematic solipsism; you know yourself that in even the austere films of Bela Tarr something happens, there is a story and it is told with a visual style that makes sense in its own context even if it is too extreme for many people. Warhol, by contrast, was a lazy individual with nothing to say, as exhibited by this kind of film and his so-called 'art'."

But Stavros, things do happen. At one point the tower is struck by lighting and the lights go on and off at various points.

Just as in Smile by Yoko Ono the big events are when a fly meanders across the screen (in slow motion because the whole thing is slow mo) and when John Lennon finally smiles - an event stretched to several minutes.

Yeah i know a little more happens in Bela tarr's films. I was somewhat in jest.

[Dino Velvet]

Excellent film, Dead Man's Cards.

http://uk.imdb.com/title/tt0455933/

Dino, you might enjoy this one, chance to brush up on yer slang.

Looks decent. Got it confused with Dead Man's Shoes at first. That's another good one.

[Stavros]

You’re right once again, Stavros, the story line is such as you describe. But what about the constant confusion about the identity of the characters? The Naomie Watts character, is she not also the blonde imposed on the director? is she not also her own brunette companion who’s precisely, strangely amnesiac and tries to find whom she is? Is there not a story of role changing through the “magic” of that key box superimposed on the obvious role play everyone in this Hollywood context has to adopt and lead so artificially? Is the candour of the main character not also mocked in some way? There’s a play or a relation between dreams and reality that doesn’t present the former as a golden way to the latter, it seems to me. I don’t pretend to understand a quite mysterious movie, but it seems to be deeper than just a story of a young woman corrupt by Hollywood. It’s all about identity, empathy, social role and position, false sense of freedom, and so on. I don’t know. That’s the way I saw it.

Fair enough, I don't see it that way, to me Lynch likes dressing up his films with cul-de-sacs because that is his style, and it works if you like watching films with weird people and apparently inexplicable scenes who might be contributing a theme-in essence, Lynch's films are stuffed with this material as a cover for a banal moral view that he hasn't changed for years, I guess if he is comfortable with it and it makes money then so be it. Its not so different from the banality in Tony Morrison's over-rated novels where pseudo-magical realism is a cover for a tedious repetition of America's infatuation with good-triumphs-over-evil stories, Beloved being a typical example. Where, for example, is there any exploration of sexuality in Lynch comparable to the subtlety and anxiety of Bergman's late films, particularly Persona, Hour of the Wolf, The Shame, and Fanny and Alexander? Films that are rich in meaning and visually precise in a manner Lynch cannot even dream of...

[danthepoetman]

Fair enough, I don't see it that way, to me Lynch likes dressing up his films with cul-de-sacs because that is his style, and it works if you like watching films with weird people and apparently inexplicable scenes who might be contributing a theme-in essence, Lynch's films are stuffed with this material as a cover for a banal moral view that he hasn't changed for years(...)

Yes. That wouldn’t be the first time in history an artist would use this trick, in visual arts, literature nor cinema indeed. I admit it is a bit easy sometimes. Montaigne was already commenting on authors hiding their banality under obscurity almost in the middle of the 16th century...

I guess if he is comfortable with it and it makes money then so be it. Its not so different from the banality in Tony Morrison's over-rated novels where pseudo-magical realism is a cover for a tedious repetition of America's infatuation with good-triumphs-over-evil stories, Beloved being a typical example.

Also agree that American culture in general and cinema in particular, is dominated by manicheistic themes (and concomitent violence)...

...for example, is there any exploration of sexuality in Lynch comparable to the subtlety and anxiety of Bergman's late films, particularly Persona, Hour of the Wolf, The Shame, and Fanny and Alexander? Films that are rich in meaning and visually precise in a manner Lynch cannot even dream of...

I absolutely agree, of course, Stavros. No comparison possible with Bergman, and especially, to my taste, with a movie like Persona which, although somewhat difficult, is a masterpiece, revolving around somewhat the same subject as the lesser Mulholand Dr.

[Prospero]

"Hyde Park On Hudson" a new film about FDR. After seeing the excellent "Lincoln" recently I was hoping this would do justice to one of America's other greatest presidents. far from it. It is a dull and ugly film, poorly directed and written, which offers a cheap take on his irregular amatory behaviour.

[fred41]

"The Yellow Sea"...Hwanghae (2010) - IMDb@@AMEPARAM@@http://ia.media-imdb.com/images/M/MV5BNTQzODg4ODQwNF5BMl5BanBnXkFtZTcwMjA0NTMyNQ@@._ V1._SX98_SY140_.jpg@@AMEPARAM@@BNTQzODg4ODQwNF5BMl 5BanBnXkFtZTcwMjA0NTMyNQ@@@@AMEPARAM@@SX98@@AMEPAR AM@@SY140
It's a little long and at first,a touch confusing...but thoroughly entertaining if you enjoy violent South Korean movies (and who doesn't?).

[irvin66]

It's fucking hilarious!!!!! I Love It!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[Stavros]

Margin Call (2011)
Good ensemble acting, especially from the pemanently reliable Stanley Tucci, the film plays a McGuffin with the financials but otherwise its worth seeing, and should probably rate a 7 out of ten for effort and acting, but lacks any real consequence. The movie on the crash, if there is one, has yet to be made.

[Stavros]

Skyfall -I won't bother listing the credits as there is nothing creditable about it except the end, which couldn't come too soon. This film is so hopelessly bad I am aghast at the critical reception it has received. Ok so like every Bond film it is based on a single idea rather than a plot, but you always know when the franchise managers have run out of ideas altogether when the only villain left is 'one of us'. As there is no plot there can be no plot holes, otherwise this would look like a Swiss cheese, without the delicate taste offset by vintage port and a cream cracker. As soon as I saw Albert Finney on the opening credits I sensed disaster, and there he was, the gamekeeper who has lived amidst the heather all his life but has no Scottish accent but some kind of mid-atlantic drawl as shaggy as his phoney beard and wooden acting. Judi Dench, who I saw on stage eons ago in The Winter's Tale; who sang like a bird in The Cherry Orchard (sounds pompous but some of the finest acting I have ever seen in one of the finest plays ever written), and was devastatingly brilliant in Talking to a Stranger has moved beyond parody, its really rather pathetic. And so on. I paid £5 to see this in the local cinema, tickets are so overpriced these days.